Protestants in Palestine: Reformation of Holy Land Pilgrimage in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
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Protestants in Palestine: Reformation of Holy Land Pilgrimage in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries Item Type text; Electronic Dissertation Authors Clark, Sean Eric Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 26/09/2021 23:45:51 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/312483 PROTESTANTS IN PALESTINE: REFORMATION OF HOLY LAND PILGRIMAGE IN THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES by Sean Eric Clark ____________________________ A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 2013 THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA GRADUATE COLLEGE As members of the Dissertation Committee, we certify that we have read the dissertation prepared by Sean Eric Clark, titled Protestants in Palestine: Reformation of Pilgrimage in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. _______________________________________________________________________ Date: (18 October, 2013) Susan C. Karant-Nunn _______________________________________________________________________ Date: (18 October, 2013) Ute Lotz-Heumann _______________________________________________________________________ Date: (18 October, 2013) Paul Milliman Final approval and acceptance of this dissertation is contingent upon the candidate’s submission of the final copies of the dissertation to the Graduate College. I hereby certify that I have read this dissertation prepared under my direction and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement. ________________________________________________ Date: (18 October, 2013) Dissertation Director: Susan Karant-Nunn STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This dissertation has been submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this dissertation are allowable without special permission, provided that an accurate acknowledgement of the source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the head of the major department or the Dean of the Graduate College when in his or her judgment the proposed use of the material is in the interests of scholarship. In all other instances, however, permission must be obtained from the author. SIGNED: Sean Eric Clark I dedicate this work to my wonderful wife, Julia. Truly, madly, deeply. Acknowledgements This work could not have been completed without the patient support of so many. First, I would like to thank my advisors and the members of my doctoral committee: Susan C. Karant-Nunn, Ute Lotz-Heumann, and Paul Milliman. Through the years of course-work and research, they have been tireless advocates and cheerleaders. I will be forever grateful. The wonderful staff and librarians at the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel made my research experience an absolute pleasure. Dr. Gillian Bepler particularly deserves special mention for her willingness to take time out of her busy schedule to provide feedback and guidance during my stay. To the Günther Findel-Stiftung and the American Friends of the Herzog August Bibliothek I owe a special debt of gratitude for funding the research for this project. To all the students and faculty in the Department of History who have provided such a rich intellectual environment for me over the years. I especially want to thank the students in the Division for Late Medieval and Reformation Studies. Much of the success of the present work can be traced to the weekly Division seminars as well as our many extracurricular meetings. The unstinting support of my family in Georgia, California, and Tucson has meant the world to me and I am extremely grateful to all of them for constantly telling me how proud they are of me and my work. Finally, I want to thank my wife. The life of a graduate student requires many sacrifices, but the life of a graduate student’s spouse is equally full of compromise. Through it all, Julia has encouraged me while always helping me keep one eye on those things that matter most in life. Thank you! Table of Contents Introduction 8 Part I, Chapter 1 – Pilgrimage in the Medieval West 40 Chapter 2 – Protestant Pilgrimage 77 Part II, Chapter 3 – Jerusalem and the Holy Land 101 Chapter 4 – Experiencing the Land 134 Chapter 5 – Experiencing the People 176 Conclusion 227 Appendix of Illustrations 232 Pilgrim-Author Biographies and Print Histories 241 Bibliography 253 Abstract The historiography on western European Holy Land pilgrimage effectively ends with the fifteenth century, giving the inaccurate impression that early modern western Christians either did not visit Jerusalem or, if they did, they were not true pilgrims. Though pilgrim numbers certainly declined in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries from their medieval heights, both Catholic and, much more surprisingly, Protestant pilgrims continued to make religiously motivated journeys to Jerusalem. Some even publishing pilgrimage narratives on their return. Twenty-five pilgrimage narratives, over half by Protestant authors and published in Protestant territories, were written between the mid-sixteenth and mid-seventeenth centuries. These largely unexplored sources underscore the complexities of confessional identity in the century and a half following the start of the Reformation. Without exception, the reformers condemned pilgrimage as part of an illegitimate theology of works righteousness. Using both historical and anthropological methodologies, this dissertation addresses the question of how Protestant pilgrims dealt with the apparent conflict between religious doctrine and personal action. It concludes that in the face of such attacks, Protestant pilgrim-authors, mostly Lutherans, attempted to redeem Holy Land pilgrimage by recasting the practice so as to neutralize criticisms and reinforce Lutheran doctrine. The dissertation’s first part, comprising a chapter of background on medieval pilgrimage and a second analyzing the expressed motivations for Protestant pilgrimage, examines the ways Lutheran pilgrim-authors justified both traveling to Jerusalem and publishing descriptions of that travel. It argues that Protestant authors believed Holy Land pilgrimage and Holy Land pilgrimage narratives could lead to greater understanding and appreciation of Scripture, and thus to greater faith. The second part of the dissertation consists of three chapters. Chapter three deals with the place of Jerusalem in medieval and early modern Christianity, paying particular attention to the Ottoman Jerusalem of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Jerusalem encountered by these pilgrim-authors. The next two chapters (four and five) in turn examine the way the Protestant pilgrim-authors describe their encounter with the land and people of Palestine. For many Protestant pilgrims, the desiccated landscape of Palestine, what they saw as its ruined state, was a warning for their readers about God’s righteous anger at human sinfulness. Again, the authors emphasize Biblical literacy. Protestant authors constantly read the landscape around them through the Bible, and read the Bible through the landscape. The final chapter explores the descriptions of other Christians residing in the early modern Holy Land, specifically the Franciscans and varied sects of Eastern Christianity. Much scholarly attention has been, for good reason, lavished on the relationship between Christianity and Islam, how Muslims were used as a mirror for creating European Christian identity. In their discussion of other Christians, however, Protestant pilgrims are able to produce a more finely detailed picture of their own particular religious identity. By bouncing their ideas of themselves off their image of other Christians, they come to a clearer understanding of what being a Christian meant for them. In the end, pilgrimage Jerusalem, was part of the larger debate about Christian identity and legitimacy. Pilgrimage, as a process involving journeys, sacred centres and symbolic articulations of deep religious messages, along with manifestations of localised meaning, is found -- and replicated -- across cultures and religious traditions, old and new. It also occurs in the secular world and the world of popular culture. In terms of its component parts - the journey and the sacred place(s) to which the pilgrim travels - it has endured as a universal practice across cultures and ages. It is found at international levels at the very core of major traditions; it appears in localised contexts through which universal themes and messages can be enacted and brought down to the level of ordinary people; it is manifested within the secular contexts of the modern world, with the universal phenomenon of pilgrimage observable even at the gravesides and homes of deceased pop stars.1 Introduction Like oil and water or orange juice and toothpaste, Protestants and pilgrimage do not mix. Or, so the traditional view of the Reformation, with